


Negotiation

by catawhumpus (ironmermaidens)



Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: Collars, Gen, Human Bargaining Chips, Imprisonment, hc crown au, non-consensual tampering with magic connections, that's a mouthful but I don't know a more succinct way to say it, the Vex, the vex as fae like, vex ex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:01:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironmermaidens/pseuds/catawhumpus
Summary: King Wels makes a bargain for the loyalty of the Convex.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	Negotiation

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a crossover between vEX and the Crown AU and is non-canonical to both AUs, but was a fun idea to write anyway. Hope you enjoy. 
> 
> This would take place at the beginning of the timeline, when Wels first comes into possession of the crown. Maybe I might write the canonical story of Evil X's capture one day?

Brash. Reckless. Stupid. He’s heard it all before from Cub, and he’d never been inclined to agree. If he was impudent it was because whoever he was speaking with deserved no respect. If he was impulsive it was because there were no consequences too great to dissuade his actions. If he was stupid...

From his prison cell, Evil X is beginning to see Cub’s point. Even through the hazy, painful fog his brain has been in since he’d woken up here. He feels a faint stirring in the back of his mind and reaches out for it. It feels like smoke slipping through his fingers. The vex call to him, and he hears the echoes of their cries as if at the end of a long tunnel. Too far away. 

A screech of metal on stone rings in his ears and for the first time since he’d woken up Evil X moves with lightning speed, clamping his hands over his ears and gritting his teeth against the sound. It echoes like the vex’s cries, but lingers well beyond its welcome, beating against his skull over and over as it seeks an escape. He feels hands grab him roughly before it does, hefting him up on wobbly legs. His eyes snap open and even the dim torchlight of the dungeon stings his eyes. He’s given as much time to adjust to the light as he was the sound of the iron door before the guards holding him begin frog marching him up the stairs, their digging grip on his biceps the only thing keeping him upright as they go. 

He’s paraded through a castle, glances and whispers from passersby barely registering beneath the pounding headache he’d woken up with, that only worsens with every step further he takes on aching muscles. He can’t help but hiss and squeeze his eyes shut when they pass through the gates out into daylight. The guards don’t stop for him to adjust. He’s shoved forward still, until a familiar voice crying, “Evil X!” makes his eyes snap open again. 

The light is too bright to make out anything more than shapes and colors. Slowly, the scene comes into focus. Wels in an imposing red cape with a brilliant, jeweled crown shining in the sunlight. Python, who wears a gaudy amulet. A handful of armored guards. Two masked individuals some distance off, holding tension the way no one else present seems to. Cub and Scar. It was Scar’s voice he’d heard. 

“Now that we understand the stakes, gentleman, I’ll ask again,” he hears Wels say, and turns to glance at the man, almost too exhausted for such a simple gesture. The crown on Wels’s head seems ill-fitting. The tone he uses sounds wrong coming out of his mouth. Arrogance wasn’t befitting the knight. Neither was the facade of royalty. “Will you join me?”

“No,” Cub says instantly, his hands loose by his sides, but Evil X knows him well enough to know he wants nothing more than to curl his fingers into a fist and allow them to meet Wels’s face right now. 

Scar is much more candid with his desires. “Let him go, Wels.”

“So you continue to resist?”

Wels flicks a wrist, and a guard steps forward, placing a cloth wrapped object on the ground between Wels’s party and the convex. The cloth is pulled away and Evil X’s heart nearly stops.

It’s his mask. His connection with the vex. His connection with Scar and with Cub. He jerks against the hold of the guards, his feet sliding in the dirt even as his body and mind protest the action. He remembers the guards overwhelming him, tearing the mask away from his face, and pain. 

Python steps forward next, and Evil X registers a heavy axe in his hands, a cruel smile on his lips. For the second time in so many moments his heart misses a beat. He feels a clamoring in the back of his mind, anxiety on top of his own coming from the vex, still clinging weakly to their connection with him.

“No,” he croaks. His feet push against the dirt again, but he doesn’t move. The guards are too strong, he is too weak. Python lifts the axe. “No!”

The axe comes swinging down, dead center. He feels it when his mask is shattered, feels the last threads of his connection to the vex snap like worn leather. He screams and throws himself forward again, this time budging the guards an inch before they regain their grip on him. His feet scramble hard until one of them kicks him in the back of his leg and he goes down to his knees. He wails, cries out for the vex to come back to him, to not abandon him here, but he knows they cannot hear him, or if they can there is nothing they can do. 

He doesn’t hear it when Python approaches, doesn’t realize the world hasn’t stopped for anyone other than him until he feels something heavy clasping around his neck, tight enough that he feels it against his throat with every hitching breath, not so tight to choke him. He feels fingers grasping his chin, forcing his face up to meet Python’s assessing gaze. He tries to school his face into something resembling neutrality, but he knows his cheeks are already red and streaked with tears. Python nods with another cruel, approving smile before stepping to the side, hand still holding onto Evil X’s face, forcing him to watch the proceedings.

Cub and Scar are stock still. Even with their faces obscured by the masks, he knows the horror filling their eyes, the paleness of their skin as the color is drained from them. Only now did they truly understand what was at stake.

“I’m feeling generous today,” Wels says, and Evil X nearly barks with horrified laughter at his words. “I give you once more the choice your pet doppelgänger didn’t have the luxury of making.”

It’s no choice at all. One way or another, Wels would have them. Hesitantly, the convex bring their fingers to their masks. They surrender.


End file.
